yarnyarnyarnyarnyarn

The postman has been kind to me this week. (I say that as if he’s bringing me all these lovely things out of the goodness of his heart, rather than because I bought them online and paid for them and it’s his job.) I have bought five interesting books and am now fondling some deliciously luxurious yarn.

Mmmmmmmmm……. yarn…………..

On which subject, I have One Sock Syndrome, with a glove. I decided to use up some of the pink yarn I’d made my cardigan out of by making a pair of fingerless gloves that would keep my hands warmer than the fingerless mittens I have at the moment (which have started to curl back at the edges) when I was typing and knitting and stuff in the winter. Unfortunately, I decided to proceed on the basis that wool was stretchy and it therefore didn’t matter if the needles I knitted it on were smaller than the ones recommended by the pattern. I mean, they were only two sizes smaller…

I now have a glove that is going to be… rather snug. And little inclination to knit its twin. Ho-hum. Though I knitted the last one dead fast, and it wouldn’t take long. Should get on with it. Promised self would not start socks for my dad until I had (as need needles for that). But the sock yarn is all stripy and lovely…

Peak Oil, Climate Change and Campaigning Links

Rob Hopkins, Transition Handbook

“Environmentalists have often been guilty of presenting people with a mental image of the world’s least desirable holiday destination – some seedy bed and breakfast near Torquay, with nylon sheets, cold tea and soggy toast – and expecting them to get excited about the prospect of NOT going there. The logic and the psychology are all wrong.”

Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

"Food is that rare moral arena in which the ethical choice is generally the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure."

Carlo Petrini

"A gastronome who is not also an environmentalist is an idiot. An environmentalist who is not also a gastronome is, well, sad."

Sharon Astyk

"I am, of course, firmly opposed to consumerism and corporatism in all its forms, and I believe that we are deeply confused about material needs and wants. Now let me explain how books and yarn are totally different than the material things that other people want ;-)…."

Raj Patel, at Slow Food Nation

"Biofuels, which is the preposterous policy that we should grow food not to eat it but to set it on fire."